Today was a shorter day, with one morning excursion and a simple short afternoon walk. We’d arrived overnight just within the Bulgarian border on the Danube, this time at a port of the small city of Vidin. The sun was shining, and the clouds were sparse - beautiful weather but threatening to reach 100 degrees (it didn’t, we just got to 99)! Unfortunately, our excursion for the morning was not set in Vidin, but rather at the small town of Belogradchik in the Balkan Mountains.
We hopped into a bus to take us on a roughly 1 hour drive to the venue. Along the way we received a monolog of local history. Some of the highlights included local crops like sunflowers and roses. The roses are particularly important to the area; apparently it takes roughly 10,000 rose-buds to manufacture 10 mL of rose oil - commonly used in perfumes. Secondly, the Cyrillic alphabet was invented in Bulgaria, and finally there is a common yoghurt here that apparently has a bacteria that leads to very little development of lacrosse intolerance!
Additionally, the drive was challenging, and my greatest KUDOS to the bus driver, these towns and roads were not made for the buses. The drive was a bit anxiety inducing as the narrow roads and step edges were precocious, and as we got near our excursion site we had to navigate the town traffic, road obstacles, sharp turns and steep hills. It was … a bit stressful.
But well worth it! We’d arrived at the Belogradchik Fortress; at the summit of a hill above the town, a brick rectangular wall surrounding the grounds, and a set of stairs rising up a set of massive red-stone towers. The original outpost built among the stones was constructed by the Romans, supplements to the elevated outpost were made in the Middle Ages, and the more complete rectangular walls and gates were constructed early in the 1800’s. The views at the entrance were already amazing, but nothing like we would be seeing soon.
The massive stones above the ground were each a unique shape; one described as a human face, one an elephant head, and my favorite was a rabbit eating up a cabbage. We climbed the 180 steps up into these rocks; the modern instalments were steep but small and easy to climb while the older stone steps were irregular and large - but could usually be worked though. The views at this point were breathtaking. In all directions we could look out from these rocky spires at the beautiful Bulgarian landscape. Endless forests upon rolling hills. Cliffs of red rock jutting up from the ground and rocky plateus sprinkled amidst it all. Looking immediately downhill we could oversee the uniform red rooves of the nearby town, nestled beneath the fortress itself.
It was one of the more stunning natural landmarks I’ve ever been to.
The drive back was much the same, though I think I found it a bit more pleasant. We returned to the ship for a quick lunch, though it was already approaching 1:00, and discuss plans for the afternoon.
After lunch we took a short walk through the local town of Vidin. It is a small location, but it was easy to walk. Particularly, there was a dedicated walking-center of the town! We were tired so did not try to do a complete exploration of the town, but we did enjoy the center. The walkways were smooth and well maintained. There were restaurants and small shops on all sides to stop into as we liked. There was clear care given to the beauty of the place with maintained flower beds ands and several fountains. It was a short walk, but a pretty one.
We were unfortunately pretty tired, so we kept it at a short day and headed in. We took some time to rest before enjoying the evening announcements and another great dinner.
Nautical Term of the Day: At Loggerheads
“An iron ball attached to a long handle was called a ‘loggerhead.’ When heated, it was used to seal the pitch in deck seams. It was sometimes a handy weapon for quarreling crewmen.”
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